Dietrich Kalteis

Where does one seek refuge when all the world’s gone mad?

The last winter of the war comes as young Jakob Fritsch’s German village in Ukraine is torched by Russian troops. Separated from his mother and younger brother, he’s shoved onto a train’s stock car. Rumors float among them; they’re being taken to a work camp over the Urals, where they will be worked to death.

As morning dawns, a lone Stuka dives from the sky, dropping its bomb on the locomotive, and the stock cars are blown from the tracks, tipped, and smashed. Through splintered boards, Jakob and others scramble out, running for the surrounding woods as the Russian guards begin shooting them down.

Jakob escapes into the endless pines, running until he’s exhausted. Some time later, he chances upon other survivors from the train: his sick and aging schoolmaster who’s a Nazi supporter at heart and the disagreeable postmaster, a man Jakob can’t stand and doesn’t trust. Always on the lookout for deserters, partisans, and Russian soldiers, the three make their way across war-torn Ukraine, begging for food and shelter where they can.

A tragic turn of events forces Jakob to journey on alone. Ever watchful, he must chance crossing the desolate countryside of Poland en route to Berlin, the only place he can go — the land of his forefathers, the heart of Germany, which is being bombed to its knees and torn apart from all sides.